2017 is shaping up to be an exciting year for Café Art Australia. After 2 emotional and rewarding competitions run in 2015 and 2016, in which we were able to positively impact many people’s lives and bring together groups of people – those affected by homelessness and those not – to talk about art and photography and things that are meaningful to them, we are now riding the momentum going into this year.

FujiFilm have kindly donated 100 disposable cameras for the project once more. Thank you Toby Davies for your continued support and for FujiFilm Australia’s continued belief in our cause.

As usual we kick off with our photography competition which will take place on June 27th 2017 from 10am – 3pm at Sydney Homeless Connect, Town Hall, Sydney. Those interested in volunteering for the event, please reach out to us at mysydneycalendar@gmail.com to get involved by Tuesday June 20th 2017.

Following this we collect the cameras a week later, and then spend time printing photos and working with professional photographers Sally McInnerney and the editor of Australia Photography Magazine Mike O’Connor to select the top 20 images, which will feature at our exhibition.

Once more we are thankful to Lentil As Anything, Newtown for hosting our exhibition. This will be on display upstairs between July 22nd and August 19th 2017. Please come along for a great opening night (time lapse link to youtube video) on Sunday August 13th 2017 from 3-6pm. This is a very special event for us, in which the artists – all of whom have been affected by homelessness – showcase their art. We feature photos from all the participants, and frame the winning 20 photos. This is also an opportunity for you to vote on the photos for our 2018 calendar.

Following the exhibition, we get busy putting the photos into a calendar and designing the calendar. This is a product which enables you to connect to our participants by seeing their stories, why they took the photos they did and to enjoy their creative images.

The calendar will be printed by PrintCraft at cost price once more, and we will be launching the calendar on World Homeless Day, October 10th 2017.

The calendar will be available for order online and we will be selling it, with the help of students from UNSW and the winning participants, throughout markets in Sydney.